Winter Sanctuary: Gathering Ice 1
by imminentem
Summary: His world is centering on her. He can feel it, slow but sure, like the pull of gravity, massive and inescapable. He'd agree to do anything for her; he does, when she turns and asks him if he'll stay in Sanctuary for the winter. With her. Of course. Anything for her. He would shatter if he tried refusing.


The average Boston winter had never been anything to sneeze at, but as Nora was quickly discovering, Commonwealth winters were in a class of their own. The temperature had taken a sudden and dramatic dive in the last few weeks, and wild rainstorms were becoming common. Tonight's was unusually vicious, the howling wind tearing at the wood and sheet metal walls, reaching its long fingers through the cracks. The cold was becoming like a living thing, a creature that lurked in the dark, patient and persistent. She could feel it in her bones, deep in her gut, in a way that she never had before. Facing an entire season of weather, that according to Nick, was only going to get worse, was a worrying thought.

Nick himself seemed unconcerned with the cold, though. He was stretched out on the battered old couch she'd dragged out of one of her neighbors' collapsing houses, his shoes kicked off in deference to her upholstery, giving her a glimpse of a pair of battered, worn, but very neatly darned socks.

He looked more relaxed in that moment than she'd ever seen him in all the months they'd been traveling together. He was paging idly through a long letter from Ellie that had been waiting for them when they arrived in Sanctuary. Nora had been slightly worried when Marcy had handed it over (with a sour look, as usual), but Nick had quickly reassured her that Ellie usually wrote him while he was out on the road, if possible. It was just her way of keeping him up to date on the happenings back in the Great Green Jewel, and the letters rarely contained news urgent enough for him to head back.

It was nice, she decided, watching him read the letter. His yellow eyes were intent, scanning each line, and the fingers of his right hand idly tapped the backs of the pages. Ellie was verbose in writing, and apparently quite amusing. Every now and then, the edge of Nick's mouth would quirk up and the corners of his eyes crinkle. It was sweet. He didn't smile nearly enough, and even less if he was being observed. She relished watching him while she picked at her lukewarm dinner, so much so that when she finally ran out of food, she kept still, in the hopes that he wouldn't notice.

But eventually, of course, Nick wrapped up with Ellie's novel and set it aside, stretching as he did with a glance around the room. She caught herself just as he started moving, and began gathering up the bowl and mug she'd been using.

"I'm sorry doll," Nick rasped as he got to his feet alongside her. "Looks like I've gone and ignored you. "

Nora dumped the dishes into the 'dirty' basket by the stove, deciding they could wait until the morning, and headed back to her bed. "It's fine, Nick." She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear and smiled at his dubious expression. "Really. It's been a long time since we've been back to the city, and you and Ellie are close. Besides," she nodded her head in the direction of the now abandoned stack of papers, "given the size of that thing, I'm surprised it didn't take you another hour."

Nick grinned at that, a genuine toothy, if slightly abashed smile. He rubbed the back of his neck with his left hand, shoving his right into his pocket and glancing back at the letter. "Well, Ellie can get a bit caught up in city gossi - er, news. And normally, it wouldn't take me so long but ah, her handwriting becomes a tad indecipherable when she gets excited."

Nora chuckled at the thought of Ellie feverishly documenting all the sordid affairs of Diamond City's residents. "With that kind of interest in information gathering, I'm surprised she hasn't made herself your partner."

His soft hum of acknowledgement gave her pause. "Something I said?"

He shook his head, and fished around for a moment in his pockets for a cigarette and lighter. "Nothing major, doll. It's just…..Ellie had a tough time of it when she was a kid." He shrugged a shoulder and lit the cigarette, flicking his lighter closed and sighing out a smokey breath. "Not that most folks don't have similar stories these days. But she had it worse than most." He huffed out another breath, dropped the worn lighter back into his pants pocket. "I'll let her tell you that story, if she ever feels like filling you in. Lord knows it's not my business." He smiled at her from across the table. "But you are right. She may not want it, but she'd make a damn fine detective if she ever set her mind to it. She practically runs the agency when I'm away, anyhow."

"It seems like she's got a need to help people," Nora said quietly. "Not to solve their problems, really, but to just...be there for them when they're in a bad way."

Nick nodded slowly. "That she does." He took another pull at the cigarette, eyed her significantly. "Would seem she has that in common with a certain someone."

Nora felt her cold cheeks heating up, looked away and tried to keep her smile light. "Keep the flattery to yourself, Valentine. You know I'm just in it for the caps."

He actually snorted at that, chuckling and shaking his head. "Says the woman who constantly refuses them. You'll have to try harder than that to throw me off the scent, doll."

Nora leaned back into her chair with a smile, pulling her sweater close. "Don't worry too much over it, Valentine. I'm not going anywhere." He gave her an odd look at that, a small sidelong glance, but it was quickly gone before she could give it much thought.

Their laughter lapsed into quiet, and they sat in companionable silence for a while; Nick smoking idly, Nora taking the opportunity to admire his profile while he wasn't looking, both listening to the banshee cries of the storm. After a time, though, a stray thought pulled her out of her musings. It was something that had been bothering her for a few days, and while now likely wasn't the perfect time to bring it up, it was probably the best chance she was going to get.

_Approach him carefully. _ Nick had built up more than a thick skin over the long years; it was more akin to armor plating than anything. But she had spent enough time hanging around him to figure out where the holes in it were. He was far from perfect, like anyone, and he guarded the gaps in his defenses carefully. She had to maneuver with caution for the moment.

She shifted in her chair, the furniture creaking softly with her movement. "Hey, Valentine." She said it softly, with a smile, but even so, Nick looked up and caught her eyes, startled out of his reverie.

"Something you need, doll?"

"Yeah, actually." Nora twisted a stray curl with her finger, tucked it behind her ear. "There was something I wanted to ask you."

Nick's brow lifted at that, but he nodded his head all the same. He leaned forward and stubbed out the remains of his cigarette in the small bowl on the table. "Anything for you doll," he replied, a small sweet smile crooking his mouth. "What'd you want to know?"

The gentle whorls of smoke from the extinguished cigarette were distracting, swirling up into the rafters at the edge of her vision. The smell was intense for a brief moment, tar and tobacco cut with something else, something unfamiliar. She drew a slow breath before starting, willing herself a confidence she wasn't feeling.

"Do you -" Nora paused, searching for the right words. Nick's golden eyes were on her, and it was abruptly difficult to focus her thoughts into order. "Do you - that is, you don't need to - " This was a mess, she could feel it falling apart before she even started. She pulled in some of the frigid air, let it burn in her nostrils and throat, took a moment and fought for the _right _words. _A lawyer should always have the right words at her command, Nora. _

"Why are you here, Nick?" She was watching; she saw how that cut him, saw the furrow of his brow that was very nearly a flinch. She hurried her next words, nearly tripping over them so he wouldn't misunderstand. "It's not that I don't want your company - want _you_ here. Because I do." She glanced down at her folded hands, smoothed the blanket over her crossed legs. "It's just that, when we met, I was a mess. Dumped into this world with no warning, no clue about anything, no chance to catch my breath and figure out what I needed to do, where to go, how to _survive_. You'd know better than anyone what that's like, really." She huffed out a breath, almost a laugh. "And if I'm honest, I still am a mess. But I've finally started to get a handle on my life as it is now. I've caught my breath." Nora gesture toward the door with one hand. "Sanctuary is on her feet now, I have a direction in my life and the capacity to follow it, wherever it leads. I have friends who care for me," she smiled up at him, "and a lot of that is thanks to you. You're such a good person, and _God_, the greatest friend anyone could ask for, and I just -" she looked down at her hands again, willing the correct words to come out. "I need to know that you're not putting your entire life on hold for me. You have so much waiting for you back at Diamond City, and I don't want you to stay here out of some sense of obligation, or because you're worried I'll fall apart or something. I don't want to be a burden for you."

Nora could have heard a pin drop in the silence that followed if it wasn't for the howling winds outside. The space between them suddenly felt strained, and Nora began to feel doubt seep in, wondering if she had said too much. Nick had looked away partway through her speech, and his eyes were hidden under the brim of his ever-present fedora now, hands clasped between his knees, elbows on his thighs. It was a long several moments before he finally shifted, bringing his good hand up to rub at his jaw in a gesture so familiar and natural, she suddenly caught a glimpse of what he must have looked like before the war, full of sharp edges and worn down corners; frankly, not too dissimilar from who sat in front of her.

Finally, Nick spoke, huffing out a long breath into the quiet. "Hell of a monologue there, doll." He glanced up at her in a flash of gold, then away and down again. The pause before he spoke seemed heavy. "But you, ah-" his shoulders hunched over the tiniest bit, hands fidgeting. "You could never be a burden to me."

Nora felt a surge of something wash over her at his words. It couldn't be relief; that seemed like the wrong word. But it was a release of tension that she hadn't been expecting, a tightness that she hadn't realized she'd been carrying slipping away. The air seemed to shift as well, the tautness of uncertainty smoothing back into their usual camaraderie. Nick leaned back in his chair, a familiar self-deprecating smile slipping into place. "And besides, you seem to have a disproportionate idea of my life back in the city. Sure, I've got the practice, and Ellie's a dear, but…" Nick tilted his head and shrugged his shoulders, "it's not like I've got much of a social life to be kept from. Folks are nice enough, but in the end," he gestured broadly with open hands, "I may be the friendly neighborhood synth, but I am still a synth. Nothing is ever going to change that."

The bitter edged to Nick's smile was making Nora uncomfortable, as it always did when he spoke like this. There was so much shame and loneliness twisted into the way he stated his nature, like he was some_thing_ to be despised and shunned and hated. And true, that was how the great majority of the Commonwealth saw and treated synths, but Nora _didn't_, and it hurt her to see her friend, her _partner_, talk about himself that way. Some of that must've shown on her face, because Nick's expression quickly softened and his smile lost most of its bitterness. "Don't worry yourself doll. I know what I am. That's just how it is. And while it isn't…fine, or right, there's nothing to be done about it." He tugged at his hat in an absent minded gesture. "It's a hard thing, changing folks' minds."

Nora summoned up a smile, feeling vastly awkward and desperate to steer the conversation down a path less filled with loathing. "It may be hard, but it is possible. And I'm sure your silver tongue and charming personality go a long way."

Nick grunted at that, and Nora felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. "Sure. _My_ personality." Seeming to catch himself, Nick rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. "Sorry, doll. I'm putting a damper on your evening."

"There's not much you can do that the storm already hasn't," Nora said, and it wrung a wry smile out of Nick. But the tenacious lawyer was rising up in her, and there was something about that which rankled her, something that told her to keep pressing. "What did you mean by that?"

Nick looked up, his expression rueful. "I shouldn't have said it, doll. Forget it."

Nora frowned, properly at this time. "No." Nick looked almost startled at that. "What did you mean?"

It was Nick's turn to look deeply uncomfortable. He shifted in his seat, clearly wishing he hadn't said anything. "I forgot I was having a conversation with the law," he grumbled, another of those mocking smiles flickering over his face. That disappeared quickly, though, replaced by a grim set of his mouth and brow.

"It's just...it's what I am." He repeated the refrain, avoiding her gaze. "I'm a synth, Nora. My body was manufactured, my memories and personality lifted from some poor man who's long dead now. None of it is real, Nora. None of it is _mine_." He gestured, helplessly. "I'm just the copy. And everything I do and say, none of it belongs to me, not really, because it all comes from _him_."

There was a sick tightening in Nora's throat and chest as she listened, his words cutting at her. They were so bitter, his voice heavy and tired and sad, filled with such intense loathing for _himself_. It was so like Nate, after he had returned from the war, bruised and scarred inside and out, refusing to talk about it. Neither of them could see the way out of the pit they had fallen into, blinded by their doubts and fears. But with Nick, the sense of loss was mixed with desperate longing.

She cleared her throat quietly, willed the words out past the lump in her throat and the ache in her heart. "You know what I see in front of me?" Nick lifted his head up a fraction, his gaze despondent, outwardly defensive. "I see a good man, who's willing to sacrifice himself for others, no matter the cost."

Nick looked away, a thick melancholy in his voice. "You're wrong doll."

Nora snapped at that, her frustration spilling out in a torrent. "Stop it! It's time to wake up and smell the goddamned roses, or whatever mutated equivalent is hanging around these days." Nick's gaze snapped back to hers, something akin to shock written over his face. His brow furrowed, almost angrily, but she cut him off before he could do more than open his mouth. "You are your own person, Nick, not matter how you came to be here. _You_ make the choices, day in and day out. You are the one who finds people, who helps people, who took in a useless stray who knew nothing of this world and stuck with her." She glared at him. "And no matter what you say or how many times you say it, you will never convince me that it's all a program, a sham. Because you are _real_, Nick, you are a good and loyal and _foolish_ man, and a great detective, even if you're obstinately blind when it comes to yourself."

She realized she was standing. She didn't remember getting up. Nora dropped back into her chair, breathing heavily; she fixed her gaze on the wall and tried desperately to keep the tears from her eyes, to get herself back under control. She could practically feel Nick's eyes on her, but she ignored it, resisted the urge to throw herself at his feet and apologize, beg him not to leave. Hearing the right thing wasn't always easy; saying it was just as hard, but sometimes, it needed to be said.

He didn't get up and leave, as she half-expected. There were no angry words, either. Just silence.

After a few minutes, when her breathing finally slowed and she judged her voice to be steady enough, Nora stood. The chair scraped against the floor, a counterpoint to the howling outside. "I'm going to bed." She started walking across the room.

"Nora."

His voice, low and quiet, stopped her in her tracks. She waited, one beat, then two, then turned. He was hunched over in his chair, hands gripping each other so tightly she could tell even from halfway across the room. Nick's brow was furrowed, his expression indecipherable, eyes glowing even more than usual in the low lamplight. "Nora, I-" His voice seemed to break, and he stopped, dipped his head even further, the brim of his fedora shielding his eyes from her. Nick's voice was a quiet rasp, almost a whisper when he spoke again. "Thank you."

Nora felt tears trying to well up again, but she pushed them back down with a vengeance. She took in a breath, and ventured into the silence, "I'll see you in the morning?" Nick looked up at her. They watched each other, saying nothing; after a long moment, Nick nodded, once. Nora tried a smile, failed. "Goodnight, Nick."

Nick swallowed, a small movement of metal in the exposed part of his throat. He tried to smile back, about as successful as hers. "Good night, Nora."

She turned; walked the rest of the way to the bed, and buried herself in the heap of blankets she had laid out. After a minute or so, Nick followed suit, blowing out the lamp and padding over to the sofa, the old thing creaking under his weight. In the near pitch black, his eyes were the only source of light, a soft golden glow in the black. He shifted, the sofa protesting as he moved, probably to hang his hat on the corner, then one more time as he settled down for the night. His eyes blinked once, twice; then they closed, leaving Nora alone in the darkness.

Sometime in the small hours of the night, Nick was aroused from the lull of his diagnostic half sleep by a sudden silence. The wind had stopped finally, leaving in its wake the sustained patter of fat raindrops on the metal roof, muffled a bit by the wood crossbeams.

He lay back onto the couch and stared into the shadowy haze above him, not quite ready to go back to sleep. The sound reminded him of his first apartment in Boston. It had been on the roof of an old brick building, the kind that looked as if it would crumble if you slammed the front door too hard. The place was one cramped room, dirt cheap, just enough space for a bed and a dresser. Nick had always been tall, broadly built, but that damned apartment had made him feel like an absolute giant. The only thing he had really loved about that place was the window. On a peaceful evening, you could see so much of the city, with its lights blazing a fire in the sky, stretching out into the horizon as a breathing testament to man's persistence and imagination. And on rainy nights, he could lay back in that tiny bed with its bad springs and listen to the patter on the window, and watch those same lights being refracted through the glass and water and onto his wall, a crystalline interplay of jewel-like colours.

Nick felt a quiet, creeping sensation in his chest listening to that sound, as he always did when he remembered something from the old Nick's life, as if he was accessing something forbidden. These days, he almost felt like a thief, stealing some poor, broken sap's memories to wield as his own. He'd spent so many years trying desperately to remember, and then so many years after trying to separate himself from the pain of old Nick's life. Truth be told, he didn't know who he was, if he was the real Nick or not. But those memories, stolen or not, those were what had kept him going for a long time. But now...

He shifted, and turned onto his side to peer through the darkness of the room at Nora, curled up under a mound of mismatched and threadbare blankets. She reminded him so much of Jenny. She was filled with a fierce loyalty, a firey determination to Do The Right Thing. And she spoke her mind when it was needed, always seeming to have just the right words on hand. What she had said to him tonight...something about that had struck him, as surely as if she had slapped him across the face. If he had a heart anymore, it would have ached up a storm nearly as turbulent as the one outside. And the doll had a point - as she always did - one that he had been avoiding for some time now.

Turns out even great detectives were blind when it came to themselves. But then, that had been one of Jenny's favorite thing to say *always while shaking her head slowly, a half smile playing at the edges of her sweet mouth as she twisted a corner of her dress around her long finger*. They really were alike, Nora and Jenny, their lash of common sense ever at the ready, their hearts open to all, but souls only bared to a select few.

And it was a testament to her trust, now that he opened his eyes and looked at the obvious clues, that she was sound asleep with him in the room. Sure, they were in Sanctuary, as safe a place as you could get in the Commonwealth, outside of Diamond City, but she was still trusting him to watch over her. He wondered suddenly when they had become so close, so intimate, that this seemed normal. When had they crossed those lines, from client, to traveling companion, to partner, to...whatever this was?

As he wondered, though, he realised in the back of his mind that he didn't mind. More than didn't mind; he wanted this, the close companionship of a trusted friend. He -

She was shivering. Like the complete fool he was, all this time he'd been looking at her and not seeing, caught up in his own foolish thoughts, not hearing the sharp little shaking breaths.

He sat up quickly, already pulling off his own blanket to add to her pile. He could curl up under his coat if he needed to. The cold bothered him, but not nearly on the scale that it bothered living people. He padded over to her, his bare feet wincing at the sudden contact with the icy floor. Nick tucked the blanket over her, then paused. Her skin was cold as a block of ice - even to the worn synthetic nerve endings in his fingers - and pale, too pale. She needed something more than threadbare blankets.

If he'd still been in the habit, he'd have been chewing at his lower lip as he watched, not sure what to do. It was the way she suddenly shifted that made up his mind, clinging to the blankets like she was drowning in the cold.

Light on his feet, careful not to wake her, Nick slowly climbed onto the bed, slipping behind her and under the blankets. He was hesitant about it, but he curled around her, resting his good hand on the curve of her hip. His body's inner workings were pretty efficient, but he still produced a bit of heat all over - close enough to a real person's, in fact, that he suspected it was intentional, another step towards making more realistic synths. Right now though, it should be just enough to keep Nora warm. And as if response to that thought, she abruptly pressed herself into him, her body coming down from the violent shudders it was being wracked with.

It took Nick a bit to get comfortable laying next to a living, breathing being. It had been two centuries, after all, and he admitted in the quiet of his mind that he was pretty badly out of practice. But after a good twenty minutes, he finally got himself to relax. He found himself breathing in the scent of Nora's hair, a faint aroma of soap she'd made from hubflowers. He nestled a bit closer, burying his nose in her soft curls. At her hip, his hand slid a bit farther up, a bit more over, fingers spreading a tad, feeling the pulsing of her heartbeat under them.

Something warm and bittersweet was unfurling in the pit of his stomach, tendrils reaching up into his chest (*or maybe it was just your imagination, you sentimental old fool*). It was something he had never thought to feel again, especially once he had woken up to find the world destroyed. If his heart could beat, it would have skipped once or twice. All things considered, he wasn't sure if it hadn't. As he slipped into his half sleep again, he smiled, a small wry, sad smile. He had someone to hold. He had someone to lose.

When he woke the second time, it was only an hour and some change later, and to the sound of half uttered cries, quiet and muffled in blankets. He propped himself up on his right arm, leaning over Nora to peer at her face.

She was caught up in a bad dream of some sort, tossing and turning under his hand - *her pulse was racing, beating against her skin, fast and hard*. Her face was caught halfway between the relaxed innocence of sleep, and an expression of pain, eyebrows scrunched at the nose, eyes squeezed shut tight.

He caught what she was muttering, now that the stupor of his half sleep was falling away - a litany of "No, no nonono no, not him, please don't take him, please I'll do anything please, no no...".

His heart felt like it broke clean in two right then and there. Nick grasped her by the shoulder, and shook, not hard, but firmly enough to wake her from whatever nightmare had ensnared her.

"Nora", he said, quiet, firm. "Wake up."

He shook her again, and with a gasp, she awoke, gulping in air like she had been underwater. It took her a moment, but she soon got out a dazed, sleepy-sounding, "Nick?"

"Yeah, doll, it's -" He got no farther before she turned into him, seizing his shirt to tug him into her, into a kiss.

It was like nothing he'd felt in the last two centuries, and damned if he didn't just about lose himself in that sudden contact. Her lips were hot against his, her fingers clawed into his shirt, so tightly that behind his dazed thoughts, he hoped it didn't tear. She felt hungry, desperate, pressing her entire body against his with feverish determination.

Before he quite knew what he was doing, his hand was sliding up the warmth of her hip, under her shirt this time, stopping at her rib cage, where he could feel the increasing pulse of her blood, the fast tempo of her breathing. He no longer had a body driven by hormones, but apparently he could still be stupefied into thoughtlessness by a kiss. Something kindled, then, a fire in his chest that made him press into her, taking, and not just receiving. He closed his eyes, pushed into the kiss that wasn't storybook or sweet, just full of loneliness and pain and desperation. He felt tears on his cheeks, and for a moment, a brief, blissful moment, forgot what he was and wondered whose they were.

And just a suddenly as it began, it was over. She clung to his chest, limp and shaking, and he realized she was sobbing, great big wracking breathless heaves. A low keen built in her throat, heart-wrenching to hear.

At a loss, Nick wrapped his arms around her. He whispered in her ear as she sobbed, "Hey, doll, it's all right, it'll be alright, just settle down. Ssshhhh."

It seemed to work, eventually, her cries subsiding more and more, until, just like that, she was out again, sound asleep. Her breathing was low and even, her arms wrapped around him. He rearranged the mountain of blankets over them and settled in for the rest of the night.

He found himself playing with her hair, running his fingers through it, his other hand tracing circles on the flat of her back. That kiss...he could feel something waking up in his beaten old body, a desire he had thought impossible. Even outfitted with the proper equipment (God only knew why, what purpose had they thought it would serve on a synth who had no need to eat or drink?), he had never felt something like this in his mechanical life. He'd forgotten, actually, and it damn near killed Nick that he could have forgotten *this*, this feeling that was surging up. He wanted to stay this way forever, to freeze this strangely perfect moment in the wee hours of the morning, the tears of the woman he was holding cold and drying on his shirt, shed for a dead husband and a lost child.

He doubted she'd remember this in the morning. And if she did, she'd most likely dismiss it as a strange dream. But Nick didn't care. For the first time in a long time, he had something all his own, a moment in time unmarred by any of the suffering inherent to this new world.

It was enough to make a fool detective cry his eyes out, too, if only he could.


End file.
